Someone has adapted C&C: Generals for augmented reality, so you can have your own strategy table right in your living room.
Command & Conquer has been thrilling its players for over 30 years, and we once asked you what your favorite title in the strategy series actually is. Command & Conquer: Generals from 2003 came out on top, and now you can play it from a completely new perspective. To do so, however, you’ll need a very specific device.
C&C Generals Zero Hour in Augmented Reality
A user shared a mod on the C&C subreddit, which transforms Generals into an augmented reality experience. With the help of a Meta Quest VR headset, you can bring the game board into your living room as a sort of strategy table. The result looks something like this:
(Reddit)
“Generals Zero Hour XR” is available for download via GitHub, where modder Stefan Maier, alias Cesarus85, makes it available for free. He describes the software:
An unofficial Meta Quest 3 port of Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour for the desktop. The terrain, units, and effects of the original game are rendered as a stereoscopic miniature battlefield, with separate windows for deployment, commands, and settings.
So far, the following features have been implemented in the mod:
- Campaign and offline battles against AI
- Cutscenes and dialogs
- Selection via touch controller, multiple selection via drag-and-drop, moving, rotating, and zooming the map, radar navigation, building rotation, groups, and waypoint routes
- A detached construction window, a permanently displayed command window, and a spatial UI panel
- Shortcuts for the user interface, commands, and ground view are located next to the game field
- User interface in English and German
Multiplayer via LAN or the Internet is not yet playable, and mouse and keyboard controls are still pending.
To actually play Generals: Zero Hour XR, you’ll need Meta Quest VR headset. The mod was built for Meta Quest 3.
In addition, you must of course own the PC game itself, including the “Zero Hour” expansion, because for legal reasons, the mod does not include maps, videos, or other game files. Instructions on how to get these into the VR app are described on the GitHub page. There, you’ll also find a guide on how to get Generals Zero Hour XR running on your headset and what settings to use.
In the Reddit thread mentioned above, many users are excited and would love to start playing right away. Projects like this show once again how creative and active the Command & Conquer community still is, even decades later.
Back in 2021, a fan had already modernized C&C: Generals to fit the Red Alert 3 universe and made it available for players to download. You can find more information about this in the article we’ve linked above.
